


Deep Roots

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Community: sherlock_remix, Gen, Remix, mothers and sons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-11 13:36:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hardest thing for a mother to say is goodbye.</p>
<p>Much love to both Tiggy Malvern and Louise Lux for betaing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep Roots

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Careless Child](https://archiveofourown.org/works/291162) by [krabapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/krabapple/pseuds/krabapple). 



Breast cancer, she finds, is an infuriating way to die.

She feels the drugs eating holes in her brain; she used to be sharper, funnier, remember things with pinpoint accuracy. Not as well as the boys -- never as well as the boys -- but certainly well enough. Now she is, as Sherlock might say, dull, dull, dull.

Sherlock has only visited twice, and on each occasion his face has taken on that familiar look he used to get as a child when he realized he'd got in over his head. The look had been unfamiliar, in recent years; to see it again is like an old lover she hadn't expected to ever re-encounter and didn't particularly miss.

She always loved him best when he was brilliantly, pig-headedly secure. Her own father had undermined her so often that she had sworn to do the opposite with her boys, and while she might have failed them on other counts, they never lacked for confidence.

Mycroft, of course, is constantly at her side, trying to tempt her into eating her favorite chocolates (they taste like chalk now), spraying the room with her beloved Coco (the scent makes her faintly ill), offering to rub her feet or read her a story or do another of the thousand other things she doesn't want him to do.

She loves him, but sometimes he carries too much of his father with him. (Father never forgave her for not marrying him; she never explained that he was already married, that he played with people's lives like a cruel boy ripping the wings off bees to see what they'd do next. She was wiser with Sherlock's father; she'd known exactly what she'd wanted. Neither of them ever knew they had children. She much preferred it that way, and Mycroft had strict instructions not to go looking.)

Lying in her hospital bed, she half-wonders if she had a second child purely to give Mycroft someone to look after once she's gone.

"Mycroft, dear," she says. "Would you fetch me something?"

"Of course," he says, his book already down. He's gained weight, eating all the hospital food she can't stomach. Her heart aches at the observation. "What do you need?"

"I'd like a pen," she said. "And some paper, and envelopes. I want to write you a letter. And Sherlock as well."

"Mother," he said, his voice unsteady. "You don't have to--"

"I do," she said. "And I'd like you to leave me alone for a bit so I can. Go for a walk, get some fresh air. Think about something other than your mother for an hour." _You have your whole life ahead of you,_ she thinks. _Think about that for a while, for my sake as much as yours._

She stares at the ceiling while Mycroft fetches the paper and pen; of course, he hands her a beautiful pen, the nice one his grandfather sent when he went to university and that he carries as a treasure still. She would have been more than content with a cheap ballpoint from the nurses' desk, but Mycroft will do nothing halfway.

She remembers sitting next to him, reading Byron, listening to him struggle with the metre, determined to get it right. She remembers sitting at Sherlock's bedside, reading Tolkien. _Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost._ In some part of her memory, they will always be children, inquisitive and rude and sharp as knife blades.

She has a moment of mad, bright fear that she might lose those memories yet. She puts it away in a drawer in her mind and focuses on the task at hand.

Mycroft, no doubt, will read the letter as soon as she's in the crematorium, obedient child that he has always been. She is grateful and reassuring in that letter, and encourages him not to blame his younger brother for his absence at her bedside. _He has always felt loss far more keenly than you,_ she writes, _and you are stronger._ Sherlock's letter is more difficult; he will almost certainly not read it right away. He might, indeed, never read it at all. Still, it must be written.

She won't tell him he's her favorite; he already knows, after all, and the boys will no doubt have enough petty rivalries without her interference. But she will tell him she chose to have him, her lanky, ridiculous son, who can say more with an arched eyebrow than most men will in their lifetimes. She will tell him to be brave and never to waste hours with regret.

She will tell him he would have made a wonderful pirate, had he been born in a different age. She will tell him to put down deep roots.

She will tell him she has no regrets.  



End file.
